UK web surfers have caught a grim glimpse of the future with Internet users being threatened with 10 years in jail for “illegal downloading” after a prominent music file-sharing site was shut down shortly after Britain signed the notorious ACTA bill.
It is the first time such a move has been made against Internet users in the UK. The British government introduced regulations in 2009 enabling Internet providers to track users who downloaded illegal content from the web and disable their connection if warning letters had no effect. But signing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has brought the conflict to a whole new level.
In Europe, people are taking to the streets in protest at the contradictory Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, with some countries refusing to sign it.
After hackers from the activist group Anonymous attacked practically all US government websites in retaliation, the authorities are now considering adopting their own home-grown anti-counterfeiting laws like PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act) / SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act).

A year ago they begged for Britain’s help when Colonel Gaddafi’s tanks encircled their city, threatening annihilation.
Now former Libyan rebels in Benghazi – liberated with the aid of the RAF last March – have systematically desecrated the graves of more than 150 British servicemen killed in North Africa 70 years ago.
Headstones at the Benghazi War Cemetery have been torn down and crucifixes smashed with hammers by a mob of extremists, some carrying guns and dressed in combat fatigues.
Desecrated: The headstones commemorating the deaths of Allied servicemen, who fought in the Western Desert campaigns between 1942 to 1943, lay smashed on the ground
More than 1,000 soldiers and airmen who lost their lives in the desert wars of Montgomery and Rommel are buried at the site in Eastern Libya.

Many were members of the famed 7th Armoured Division, known as the Desert Rats, who played a crucial role in the see-saw battle for control of Libya and Egypt between 1941 and 1943.
More…’Torture’ video shows ‘Gaddafi’s black African mercenaries locked in a zoo cage and force-fed flags by Libyan rebels’
Cameron accuses Assad of ‘butchering’ his own people and warns regime of day of reckoning
Scottish Justice Secretary ‘told Lockerbie bomber to drop appeal to smooth ground for compassionate release’
Bill Gates, Bradley Manning and Bill Clinton ‘among Nobel Peace Prize nominees’ (but will panel focus on Arab Spring instead?)
Trial of US aid workers adjourns in Egypt with tension mounting as Obama threatens foreign aid for resolve
No shame and no gratitude in lawless Libya: The profoundly disturbing attacks on war graves

Graves of RAF pilots were among those shattered by the thugs. It was their job to fly bombing raids – just as the RAF did last year – to assist Lieutenant General Montgomery’s Eighth Army and support commandos clearing routes for tanks.
Sickeningly, the attack, which was carried out over two days last week and appeared highly organised, was filmed by one of the men involved and posted on the internet.

As they rampage among the graves, members of the mob are heard to repeatedly say of the dead servicemen: ‘They are dogs, they are dogs.’
Senseless: A man kicks down headstones of soldiers during the rampage that was filmed and posted online
The violence was thought to be retaliation, in part, for the burning of the Koran by US soldiers in Afghanistan last month.
Footage shows the mob methodically kicking down grave after grave. Some are then smashed with hammers. ‘Destroy that cross, they are dogs,’ cries one hooded rebel.
Another voice is heard saying: ‘We begin with this one then we’ll take care of that other one. We won’t leave any left.’
A few seconds later another extremist says: ‘This tomb has a cross on it – a disbeliever.’
As they discover a Jewish grave bearing the Star of David, one of the men says: ‘Look at what it says on it. There is even Israeli writing . . . in Hebrew.’
And in one of the most disturbing sequences, one protester attaches a ladder to the Cross of Remembrance next to the cemetery. He climbs up it and begins hacking at the memorial with a hammer. Then he shouts: ‘Watch out young people. It’s going to fall.’ The cross is then smashed off.
Sacrifice: Some 1,214 graves are marked in Benghazi War Cemetery
Relatives of those buried at the cemetery, which is maintained by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, last night reacted with disgust. The desecration was also condemned by Montgomery’s grandson Henry Montgomery, who called it ‘very sad’.
Among the heroes buried at Benghazi is Geoffrey Keyes, who was the youngest lieutenant colonel in the British Army when he was killed at the age of 24 during Operation Flipper, a daring mission 250 miles behind enemy lines.

He was shot in a raid on what was believed to be Rommel’s headquarters in Sidi Rafa, Libya, in November 1941 and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for ‘magnificent leadership and outstanding gallantry . . . and supreme self-sacrifice’.
It was not clear last night if his headstone was among those destroyed. But one of the smashed headstones records the death of the Reverend Geoffrey Bond, Chaplain to the Forces, who was 30 when he was killed on March 21, 1941, near Benghazi. His nephew, Geoffrey Bell, said last night: ‘This is terrible news. Damn those bloody Libyans.’
Former diplomat Edward Chaplin, who heads the War Graves Commission, said: ‘Clearly it’s a terrible thing to have happened.
‘It’s shocking that attacks of this nature should be carried out against a cemetery. We take very seriously the preservation of these memorials to those who have given their lives in wars.’
Religious hate: Fanatics attack a Jewish headstone
Mustafa Abdul Jalil, head of state in Libya’s caretaker government, condemned the attacks as ‘unethical, irresponsible and criminal’. He said the Libyan government ‘severely denounces such shameful acts and vows to find and prosecute the perpetrators’.
There are 1,214 Commonwealth servicemen of the Second World War buried or commemorated at the Benghazi War Cemetery. Of the 1,051 identified graves, 851 are British. It also contains graves of Australian, New Zealand, South African and Indian servicemen.
One shattered headstone, broken into a dozen pieces, records the death of a Canadian pilot, M. P. Northmore, who was killed in October 1943.
The cemetery is the last resting place for several soldiers from one of Britain’s oldest regiments, the King’s Royal Rifle Corps, founded in 1775. Four of the regiment’s battalions took part in the North Africa campaign and one of its members, Rifleman John Beeley, was awarded the Victoria Cross after being killed while storming a German machine-gun post at the battle of Sidi Rezegh in November 1941.
Richard Frost, secretary of the regiment association, said: ‘Our 1,500 surviving members will find it difficult to cope with what has happened. All riflemen, regardless of their age or where they served, will be disgusted by these scenes.’

PHOTOGRAPHS IN LINK…MINISTERS ON RADIO MAKING ALL THEIR CREEPY EXCUSES!
UNLIKE IN BRITAIN LIBYAN ISLAMISTS DON’T NEED TO ACT COY ANYMORE!

Wrecked: Extremists fetch a ladder to smash away at the war memorial next to the cemetery

AKIN TO KOSOVO CHURCHES!

Disrespect: A man smashes the cross with a hammer

Sad: A remnant of the cross lies smashed on the floor

Shattered: The memorial after it was attacked by the mob
Pamela Thornton-Bassett, whose father, Flight Lieutenant Frank Thornton-Bassett, is buried at Benghazi, said she was ‘greatly saddened’ by the attack.
The RAF officer was 40 when he died in an aircraft crash near the city on February 3, 1943.
His daughter, who lives in Halesowen in the West Midlands, said: ‘He was attached to a unit that set up broadcasting facilities and was sent out to Cairo when Churchill was there to make an important speech. On the way back to Benghazi, where he was based, my father’s plane was brought down in the desert by a mechanical fault. The pilot was killed outright and one of the crew walked away. My father was badly injured and survived for a week.
‘I was concerned about what would happen to the cemetery all the time Gaddafi was in power. I never visited because I was put off by the thought of him running the country. Yet now this happens after his departure.’
A Commonwealth War Graves Commission spokesman promised that the cemetery would be restored ‘to a standard befitting the sacrifice of those commemorated at Benghazi’. But he added: ‘This could take some time because we will need to source replacement stones.’
Although the burning of the Koran was blamed for the desecration, others in the city believe it was also a perverse expression of deeper frustrations.

The uprising that brought an end to Gaddafi’s 42-year rule began in Benghazi, but many of the rebels there now feel left behind in the new Libya.
Since the transitional government moved west to the capital Tripoli, they say they have been ignored and have suffered economic hardship.
NOT JUST A STONE, BUT A MARK OF A ‘WONDERFUL, CHARISMATIC’ MAN ‘He had a special aura’: The top half of Rev Bond’s smashed memorial

Rev Bond at his wedding to Patricia in 1940
It lies smashed in half and smeared with red earth from the boots of the men who stamped upon it.
Like the rest of the 1,200 plain white gravestones in Benghazi War Cemetery, it records only elementary details.
It says that the Reverend Geoffrey Bond, Chaplain to the Forces, died on March 21, 1941, at the age of 30.
And below this stark fact is a cross and the inscription: ‘Let light shine perpetually on him.’
But yesterday, traced by The Mail on Sunday, one of his surviving relatives recalled a cultivated, ‘extraordinarily charismatic’ man.
David Bell said: ‘He was my mother’s brother and a very wonderful man.
‘I was only a baby when he died but my mother absolutely adored him. She spoke of his special aura, a way he had of making everyone feel better about themselves.
‘I had a brother who died aged three and I know Geoffrey counselled my mother afterwards and played a crucial role in getting her through her grief.’

Mr Bell said his Cambridge-educated uncle – whose own father Bernard was killed at the Somme in 1916 – was also held in affection by servicemen who greatly valued his pastoral care.
When he married Patricia Hodges in Surrey in March 1940, he was presented with a silver cigarette box by officers from 1st Heavy Armoured Brigade. His widow died in 1990.
Of the attack on the cemetery, Mr Bell said: ‘It is greatly upsetting, a disaster.’

I allways had a nagging feeling that we were backing the wrong side, I allways wondered how, in a largely illiterate country a few people with access to the internet could be called a popular uprising. I asked these questions at the time but they wrer lost in a torrent of government instigated anti Gaddafi rhetoric. I think Cameron and Glorious war leader Hague should do some serious soul searching before helping to de stabilise the world any further.
– graham melville, west midlands, 04/3/2012 11:2

WHY DIDN’T YOU USE YOUR LOAF AND SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH YOURSELF?

I just wonder how many of these perfectly useless creatures could be relied upon to venture up the English Channel to help liberate the good old UK if it were required. The answer is of course absolutely none. The country of Libya in line with most other middle east states have no true history of anything worth mentioning. Why we assisted them in getting rid of Ghadaffi is beyond me. Cameron and Sarkozy no doubt with Libyan cash stuffed into their pockets know better.
– sas604, jalon. spain, 04/3/2012 11:21

OBAMA AND HENRI LEVY????

We should learn something from this, if you try to interfere in other countries wars you will pay for it in the end. Our government should stop sending our troops to these countries, let them sort out their own problems. We have enough problems in this country to sort out before we start interfering with others. Sad though the scenes coming out of Syria are, we should keep well out of it. Defence cuts mean we no longer have the capability to get involved in these disputes around the world, and our politicians should stop pretending otherwise.
– Ellie, Leicestershire, 04/3/2012 11:16

A general in the opposition militia known as the Free Syria Army has told journalists that the rebels have received French and American military assistance, amid reports of worsening violence in the stricken nation.
In Homs on Tuesday, a general claiming to be from the rebel group appeared on camera and told a journalist from Reuters news agency that “French and American assistance has reached us and is with us.” When asked to elaborate on the nature of the assistance he added, “We now have weapons and anti-aircraft missiles and, God willing, with all of that we will defeat Bashar [President Assad].”
The international community maintains it is committed to finding a political solution to the conflict and had rejected the idea of military intervention. However, there are growing suspicions that it has been supplying the opposition with weapons indirectly.

We just arm everybody with wmd’s and pretend like we can trust them. When the US was in a war against Briton, did a foreign country arm us? Yes, but was it for free? NO! What do we as a nation get out of this besides a bunch of thugs who are still living in the dark ages who are now heavely armed?

—”It’s sad when the only one you can trust in the Main Stream Media is the daym Weather Man.” -F.I.A.

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s charicter, give him power.” – The man who didn’t have much charicter-Lincoln
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David Miliband paid £70,000 for just three days’ work advising venture capitalists investing in ‘green’ technology

Mr Miliband earns more than £500,000 since being beaten by his brother in Labour leadership election
He received £125,000 for eight speeches last year
As David Miliband secures lucrative part-time jobs his brother has led populist attacks on high executive pay
By Rob Cooper

Last updated at 1:03 PM on 25th February 2012

Comments (241) Share

David Miliband earned a staggering £20,000 a day as an adviser for a company investing in green technology, it has been revealed.

The former Foreign Secretary was paid £70,000 for just three-and-a-half days spent working for VantagePoint CleanTech in California.
The post with the American venture capitalists is the latest in a series of lucrative part-time positions Mr Miliband has taken up since being beaten by his brother in the Labour leadership contest.
Bumper pay days: David Miliband has earned more than £500,000 since being beaten by his brother in the Labour leadership election 18 months ago
On top of that he also pocketed £125,000 for delivering eight speeches around the world in the last year, according to the House of Commons register of financial interests.
More…Now she’s the out of work Tsar! Day after quitting her government role, PM’s jobs adviser forced to resign from firm she founded amid escalating claims of fraud
Fast food to go: Burger King pulls out of Government’s controversial work experience scheme

News of Mr Miliband’s staggering earnings comes after his brother has led a populist attack on ‘fat cat’ executives in a bid to turn round his flagging political fortunes.

NICE LITTLE EARNER: HOW DAVID MILIBAND HAS RAKED IT IN
How David Miliband has built up his fortune since losing the Labour leadership election in September 2010. His pay includes:

£65,000 MP’s salary (plus expenses)
£75,000 per year as Sunderland FC director (12 to 15 days work)
£50,000 as adviser for Indus Basin Holdings
£70,000 as senior adviser for VantagePoint CleanTech (three days work)
£125,000 for eight speeches delivered in London, France, Sweden, Hong Kong and India.
£39,000 for working as an adviser for Oxford Analytica (seven days work)
£24,000 for one week of university teaching at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
£25,000 for one week teaching at Stanford University
£65,000 as member of the advisory board to the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs (three days work)

In total, David Miliband earned in excess of £380,000 in the last 12 months – on top of his annual MP’s salary of £65,000.
Since losing the leadership poll 18 months ago he has earned more than £500,000.
There is no suggestion that he has broken any rules by taking up the highly-paid positions.

VantagePoint paid him to travel over to the U.S. to carry out his three days work in August and September last year.
He was recruited to advise the company’s investment team on international opportunities and policy innovations.
Alan Salzman, VantagePoint chief-executive, said as he was appointed last year: ‘David brings a truly unique perspective and world-class experience that will help us navigate complex energy markets.’

Mr Miliband said: ‘In a world shifting from resource plenty to resource scarcity I am looking forward to working with VantagePoint towards real solutions to global energy needs.’

The company have invested £2.5billion in IT, digital media, energy efficiency and green industries.
Last month David Miliband took another lucrative job with Pakistan-based City firm Indus Basin Holdings.

The firm, set up to funnel investment into Pakistani agriculture, boasts a number of colourful backers, including a Swiss aristocrat playboy called Baron Lorne Thyssen-Bornemisza.

Fat cat attack: Ed Miliband, left, has criticised high executive pay while his brother has taken on a series of high-paying part-time roles
Mr Miliband, who will earn about £50,000 a year from the part-time position – which is not expected to occupy him for more than a few days a month.
He also earns £75,000 a year as a non-executive director at Sunderland Football Club for just 12 to 15 days work a year.
The politician has constructed his business affairs in a way that appears to limit tax liability.

Mr Miliband would pay income tax at the normal rate on his £65,000 salary for being an MP.

But his non-parliamentary earnings, however, are paid into a company called The Office Of David Miliband Limited, which is subject to corporation tax of between 20 per cent and 27.5 per cent – substantially less than the 50 per cent rate of income tax for those earning more than £150,000.

The doctors who have just made the break through in keeping kidneys working outside the body are the ones who deserve to earn 70000 for three days work not David milliband I hate the government and what it stands for in this country all in it for them selves and there should be a law against it
– david, Staffordshire, 26/2/2012 11:31

DOCTORS SHOULD BECOME FABIANS FIRST!

Nice to see that the heir apparent to the Labour leadership is as big a hypocrite as all those since John Smith that have preceded him. His brother has succeeded in doing what many thought was impossible and proved himself more stupid than Brown, be honest would you have trusted him with your washing up unsupervised?, , the war criminal has sucked up millions since leaving the country, Kinnock is right in the EU trough, so bloated with his Lordliness he’s forgotten there ever was a place called Wales that elected him. Come on Dave, let’s see you at the Despatch Box, let the Labour voters see what they’ll be getting at the next election.
– Ace Rimmer, New Milton, 26/2/2012 09:45

Ace, THE VOTER WILL GET ANOTHER MARXIST- LIBLABCON MERCHANT!

Forget about the tribal divides. Tory bashing or calling labour hypocrites. Blaming each other for the mess. They all hate us. The country has been sold down the river by both parties. Greedy and self-serving. London and I’m sure other parts of Eng;and and the UK has been turned into a third world ghetto. Rapes, stabbings, shootings and full of endless people who hate us and this country and inept politicans from the right whose supporters either use cheap labour or leftists who love the destruction of national identity. Vote for ANYONE but the old parties.
– Jason G, England, 26/2/2012 02:37

How about the mail having a balance report. Look at the Conservatives who are making large sums especially John Major, what did he do UK PLC. – Shaun, Hants, 25/2/2012 14:19…………………………The Conservatives don’t pretend to be Marxist left wing Socialist that’s the difference. Labour are hypocrites.
– Jan, Kent, 26/2/2012 02:17

‘Power to the people’ in public services shake-up as David Cameron unveils plans to privatise parts of police service

By Tim Shipman

Last updated at 12:00 PM on 25th February 2011

Comments (186) Share

David Cameron unveiled the biggest shake-up of the public services in half a century yesterday – which will see even parts of the police service privatised.
Businesses, charities and voluntary groups will be allowed to bid to run services in every part of the public services apart from the security services and the judiciary.
The Prime Minister hailed the plans as a chance to ‘end the state’s monopoly over public services’.
Privatisation plan: David Cameron’s White Paper could see parts of the police run by businesses, charities and voluntary groups
A White Paper published in the next two weeks will create the presumption that private providers can apply to run nearly all aspects of the public services – with payment based on results.
Private firms will be paid for providing NHS operations, road maintenance, parks and care services.
Most controversially, they will also enable private sector providers to carry out some police services functions such as forensic testing and back office work – though not frontline policing.

‘Police forces are not about to be privatised,’ Mr Cameron’s spokesman said. ‘Capita is not going to be running the Met.’ But officials confirmed some functions will be hived off to contractors.
Mr Cameron said the plans would end the ‘old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given’ culture in health, education and town hall services.
Senior figures in No. 10 are aware the planned shake-up will be hugely controversial. Mr Cameron’s new director of policy Paul Kirby wrote a paper last year on how the government should switch to a payment-by-results service.
The document warned: ‘The radical change required will present many risks and create a lot of turbulence.’
Union barons reacted with anger yesterday.

RMT leader Bob Crow said the Government would ‘privatise the air that we breathe if they thought they could away with it’.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: ‘This is a naked Right-wing agenda that takes us right back to the most divisive years of the 1980s.’
The plans also risk causing a split with the Liberal Democrats, who are opposed to profit-making firms owning schools.

Sorry, David, but police are supposed to be answerable to the LAW and the LAW alone, not to any other body, political or charitable or anything else with an axe to grind…….. “Privatised” police are therefore NOT police at all, neither recognisable as such and still less acceptable as such. ONLY police officers serving the CROWN can actually BE police officers……….. There is NO other sort which we will permit on our streets………… DON’T try it……………..
– (Old) Robert, Worcester UK, 24/2/2011 09:50

POLICING BY CONSENT CAMERON- NOT AT YOUR DICTATE OR ANY OTHER FABIAN COMMIE!!

AND SOME GOONS BLAME MAGGIE- BET THEY GET A VOTE TOO….

SOVIETISATION TAKES ANOTHER LEAP FORWARD!

David Cameron with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev (Pic:Getty)
David Cameron would have made a “very good” spy for the Soviet Union, the Russian president said today.

But Dmitri Medvedev suggested MI5 would still have rooted him out before he reached Downing Street.

The comments came after Mr Cameron told of an apparent KGB bid to recruit him when he was a teenager.

In a speech at Moscow State University, the Prime Minister said: “I first came to Russia as a student on my gap year between school and university in 1985.

“I took the Trans-Siberian Railway from Nakhodka to Moscow and went on to the Black Sea coast.

“There, two Russians – speaking perfect English – turned up on a beach mostly used by foreigners.

“They took me out to lunch and dinner and asked me about life in England and what I thought about politics.

“When I got back I told my tutor at university and he asked me whether it was an interview.

“If it was, it seems I didn’t get the job!”

In a joint press conference later, Mr Medvedev said: “I’m pretty sure that David would have been a very good KGB agent.

“But in this case he would never have become Prime Minister of the UK.”

BULLSHIT- HEATH BECAME PM- ALL LABOUR PMs HAVE BEEN FABIAN COMMIES-ALL!

Brian Gerrish – Soviet Britain Part 3/4

CROSSLAND DESTROYED GRAMMER SCHOOLS- WHICH ALLOWED THE WORKING CLASS TO CLIMB UP THE LADDER….

The people of Britain, and of the world, will have to pay in agony and suffering for the failure to accomplish the overthrow of capitalism which lay within the grasp of the Labour government in Britain. The rearmament race, and the undermining of the reforms of the Labour government, even in the latter period of Labour’s rule, indicate that ‘welfare capitalism’ cannot maintain itself for any extended period of time. In the situation of British and world capitalism reforms are inevitably undermined by the impasse of the system itself. Only a fundamental change, economically and politically, can stabilise reforms and steadily prepare the way for a new socialist society.

CAPITALISM HAS ALWAYS BEEN A THREAT TO FABIANS IN WESTMINSTER- AND THEIR FABIAN BANKING FAMILIES- IN THE CITY OF LONDON.

THE PUBLICATION of the New Fabian Essays with an introduction by Attlee marks a stage in the development of the labour movement in Britain. In it is supposed to be summed up the experience of the last 50 years both nationally and internationally, by the intellectual elite of the Labour Party including Crossman, Crosland, Strachey, Mikardo, Denis Healey, Austen Albu, Jenkins and others.

The old programme of the Fabians, having been largely carried out by the Labour government between 1945-50, is recognised as being inadequate or outmoded to solve the problems of creating a socialist society. At the same time there is ferment within the ranks of the labour movement; the rank and file are looking for a theoretical and practical explanation of the inadequacies of the government of 1945-50 in order to implement policies which will clear the way for socialism.

The publication of Bevan’s book[1], the new Socialist Union publication, and the New Fabian Essays are all symptomatic of the awakening and the searching for a fresh policy. The Bevan controversy which has shaken the movement from top to bottom is the best indication of this search for a policy and programme which will serve the needs of socialism.

To analyse adequately and criticise all the arguments in New Fabian Essays would require another book as lengthy or lengthier than the Essays themselves, especially as the Essays contradict each other in many fundamentals and do not constitute a harmonious philosophical, theoretical or political whole. Despite the varying views and some healthy criticisms of the bureaucratised nationalised industries (from the point of view of pressing for greater democracy and greater participation of the workers in the control of these industries), there are some basic threads of thought underlying all the Essays: the idea that the structure of British society has been fundamentally changed by the nationalisation of some of the basic industries and the creation of the ‘Welfare State’, the rejection of Marxism which is equated with the doctrine of totalitarian Stalinism, and the theory that this is the epoch of the so-called ‘managerial revolution’.

One striking feature of the Essays is the rejection at least in words of the narrow and provincial view of old Fabians who confined themselves to Britain and British problems and ignored world developments. At a time when even capitalist politicians have been forced by the realities of economic evolution to recognise the interdependence of the world, and when events have brought home crushingly the urgency of international problems even from the point of view of day to day policies, it is no longer possible to maintain such a provincial outlook. At the same time, on home problems too, Fabian pace, snail’s pace, has been discredited as a method of obtaining the socialist objective. Without a drastic overhaul of social relations reaction is bound to set in.

Leadership Holds Back

Richard Crossman perhaps unwittingly gives the key to the solution of the dilemma facing the workers in the labour movement when he says ‘At that time (first months of Labour rule) the British people were ready to accept the peaceful socialist revolution; and if what it got was merely welfare capitalism, the fault lay with the politicians and not with the public.’ Thus a golden opportunity of transforming Britain into a workers’ democracy and shaking the world by her example was lost by the cowardice and shortsightedness of the leadership. A bold and radical nationalisation of all industry with, perhaps, compensation on the basis of a means test, an appeal to the workers of Europe and Asia to join and set up a United Socialist States of Europe and Asia would have changed world history and begun the transition to socialism for the people and states of the whole world.

The people of Britain, and of the world, will have to pay in agony and suffering for the failure to accomplish the overthrow of capitalism which lay within the grasp of the Labour government in Britain. The rearmament race, and the undermining of the reforms of the Labour government, even in the latter period of Labour’s rule, indicate that ‘welfare capitalism’ cannot maintain itself for any extended period of time. In the situation of British and world capitalism reforms are inevitably undermined by the impasse of the system itself. Only a fundamental change, economically and politically, can stabilise reforms and steadily prepare the way for a new socialist society.

The new Fabians are haunted by the experience of Stalinism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe. This leads them to stress the dangers of the ‘concentration of power in the hands of either industrial management or the state bureaucracy’. Says Crossman:

“This task was not even begun by the Labour government. On the contrary, in the nationalised industries old managements were preserved almost untouched, and appointments to the national, regional and consultative boards were made as if with the express intention of reaffirming that no change was intended. The government’s attitude to central planning was simple. Up to 1947, no serious attempt was made to construct even a central mechanism for assessing resources and requirements of wealth and labour, and allocating them to the various needs…Nor was an effort made to encourage popular participation in the new Welfare State…the impression was given that socialism was an affair for the Cabinet, acting through the existing Civil Service.”

Crossman and the other Fabians might have added that the power of the capitalists remained largely as it was. Over the period of Labour’s rule the profits of the capitalists actually increased, while the state machine: army, police, civil bureaucracy, in its topmost strata remained the preserve of faithful members and supporters of the ruling class. In the structure of rule the power of the ruling class thus remained virtually intact. It is this, at least in part, which the new Fabians are compelled to recognise and to call for the active and direct Participation of the masses in industry and, we might add, in the direct administration of the state from top to bottom, if enthusiasm and activity are to be engendered.

Has Capitalism Been Transformed?

Nevertheless, as a result of full employment in Britain consequent on the post-war boom, the mirage appears of a change in capitalist economy which has transformed it into a post-capitalist ‘managerial’, ‘controlled’ economy, in which the laws of capitalist economy no longer operate, thus eliminating slumps and booms. This receives its finished expression in the essay of Anthony Crosland.

He starts with a complete distortion of the Marxist analysis mainly because, to put it mildly, of his ignorance of the economic and philosophical doctrines of Marx. It is a pity he did not take Engels’ advice ‘…a man who undertakes to discuss scientific questions should learn above all to read the works of the author whom he wishes to study, just as they have been written, and especially not to find anything in them which they do not contain’. For example, the idea theat ‘capitalism would collapse of its own accord’. An idea more foreign to the method of Marxism would be more difficult to conceive. And a few paragraphs after the assertion that the Marxist prognosis is false (how explain the revolutions in China, Russia and Eastern Europe on this basis?) he asserts ‘The resistance to change, moreover, has been weakened by the fact that the capitalist bourgeoisie is no longer as self-confident as in its hey-day.’ And again ‘Savage taxation of income and property and the nationalisation of private industries have aroused scarcely more opposition than measures to limit child labour a hundred years ago.’

It never occurs to him that it is the twilight of capitalism nationally and internationally which has undermined the confidence of the capitalists; the development of capitalism beyond the framework of private ownership which forces the capitalist class to swallow limited measures of statification to keep the economy going. It is the industries ruined by capitalism, too expensive to regenerate by old methods, in which the capitalists swallow nationalisation as a necessary evil. But, as soon as a favourable opportunity occurs, profitable industries like steel and road transport are handed back, at a handsome discount, to big business.

This it is which makes so dangerous the complacency of Crosland and others in the Labour Party who think as he does that the capitalists will inevitably swallow other reforms as tamely as in the last period of office of Labour. Shortsightedness could not go further in analysing the reaction to reforms by the capitalists. You can trim the claws of a tiger but its dangerous strength remains, especially when its teeth are untouched. Woe betide the unwary who place their bodies at the mercy of the wild animals of big finance.

After the first world war capitalism in Western Europe, especially in Germany, accepted many reforms to ride the revolutionary tide and save the system from complete overthrow. It did not prevent them later, in desperation, from financing and supporting Hitler. In 1936 the French capitalists acquiesced in many reforms for fear of the masses, following the stay-in strikes. This did not prevent them from returning to the attack and whittling away the reforms as soon as the mass upsurge was spent. After 1918 in Britain many reforms were achieved which did not prevent Baldwin later from launching an all out attack which precipitated the general strike of 1926.

Under Crosland’s nose and as he wrote, the Conservative government of Churchill is cautiously whittling away the gains made by the workers in 1945-9. And this while ‘full employment’ remains!

In what would undoubtedly have been written in humorous vein if Crosland had even a nodding acquaintance with Marxist doctrine, he says ‘The propertied class has lost its traditional capitalist function -the exploitation with its own capital of the technique of production – and as the function disappears so the power slips away.’ Leaving aside the error in the last few words, Marx had already observed the process and predicted the result a century or so ago. The ‘modern’ Crosland is a little behind! And as if the necessity of change from one social system to another is not signalised by the loss of function in production (as Marx explained a thousand times) of the old ruling class! Thus the loss of function of the feudal lords who became parasites before the Cromwellian and especially the French revolutions, as even Carlyle observed. And as if the socialisation of labour under capitalism, the centralisation of capital, the creation of joint stock companies – had not been analysed by both Marx and Engels. Also the consequent transformation of the entrepreneurs from a necessary function in production to complete parasites and drones has been shown as an inevitable result of the process of capitalist production:

“Stock companies in general, developed with the credit system, have a tendency to separate this labour of management as a function more and more from the ownership of capital, whether it be self-owned or borrowed. In the same way the development of bourgeois society separates the functions of judges and administrators from feudal property, whose prerogatives they were in feudal times. Since the mere owner of capital, the money-capitalist, has to face the investing capitalist, whilst the money capital itself assumes a social character with the advance of credit, being concentrated in banks and loaned by them instead of by its original owners, and since, on the other hand, the mere manager, who has no title whatever to the capital, whether by borrowing or otherwise, performs all real functions pertaining to the investment capitalist as such, only the functionary remains and the capitalist disappears from the process of production as a superfluous person.” (Capital, Volume 3, page 387)

Ironically enough it is precisely Crosland and his colleagues who believe that capitalism collapses automatically by transforming itself into something else once the function of the entrepreneurs has disappeared! Marx, on the contrary, pointed out the necessity under these conditions for the proletariat, organised in the labour movement, consciously to overthrow the dying system of capitalism. The reaction to these conditions would produce the party and leadership, despite many errors and lost opportunities, which would ultimately destroy capitalism. The existence of such conditions, to a Marxist, would merely prove the extreme decay of capitalism and the ripeness of the social system for the socialist revolution.

Crisis Ended?

Crosland, however, excels himself in his analysis of the economic plight of capitalism. Airily dismissing the Marxist thesis on the contradictions of capitalism he observes that ‘The 1931 depression, although unusually severe, was not the first depression of such severity – the famous slump of 1873-7 was at least as bad.’ This is to compare the effects of a cold in youth to pneumonia in old age. The slump of 1873-7 marked a great economic convulsion of capitalism. It succeeded in escaping its effects by the intensive expansion of the Californian gold fields, the opening-up of Africa and Asia, the development of imperialism. These were some of the reasons why, after the slump of 1873 there was a relative ascent of capitalism. Says Schumpeter[2]:

“The broad fact of great steadiness in long term increase…remains, both in the sense of rough constancy of the gradient of the trend and in the sense of what, merely by way of formulating a visual impression, we may term the general dominance of trend over fluctuations…In no country does 1873 look very catastrophic. In America 1844 produced almost no fall at all. The crises of the early nineties shows, for Germany, only a considerable dent. In the long English series it happens only twice that absolute fall outlasts two years. In the case of Germany, this occurred only in 1868, 1869 and 1870; in America also but once.” (Business Cycles, McGraw-Hill Volume 2, page 494, our emphasis)

But every authoritative capitalist economist and observer was profoundly dismayed at the spectacle of the slump of 1931-3. The period of rising capitalism came to an end in 1914. After 1873-7 there were depressions but not such as to shake the economy from top to bottom. After the 1929-33 collapse had been painfully overcome only the rearmament boom and the war prevented an even more shattering recurrence of the slump. It was this in economic terms which precipitated the second world war of 1939-45. This is hardly a symptom of the health of the economic system. Periodic wars of destruction which threaten to annihilate the cities man has built and technical conquests achieved, are hardly an inspiring alternative for capitalism to offer to periodic crises of over-production. But here Crosland, Strachey and others deny or half deny that over-production or slump will occur. They think the full employment which obtained in Britain under the Labour government (and to a slightly less extent obtains also under Churchill’s government) was a consequence of the policies of the Labour government.

This was so only to a secondary extent. Full employment obtains in America, the last stronghold of capitalism, also since 1945. In both cases this is due to the boom which usually follows every war. War has the same effect as a slump, where the ruin, destruction and wearing out of capital and consumer goods paves the way for recovery, but in an enormously intensified form. The capitalist crisis is overcome in war by the destruction of consumer and capital goods, by the production of fictitious capital in the shape of arms and arms production, which has, after the war, to be made good by economy. But despite measures of ‘regulation’ and ‘control’, despite the enormously increased role of state and of militarism (incidentally forecast by Marx and Engels) the problems of capitalism are not overcome, neither is the elimination of capitalism achieved thereby. Where, as in Britain, 80 per cent of the economy is privately owned, the laws of capitalism basically continue as before. The capitalists continue to operate for profit not for the sake of keeping the economy on a high level. Any spending by the state by so-called ‘Keynesian techniques’ can only aggravate economic crisis once the crisis of over-production begins.

A simple point which even the orthodox capitalist economists can understand is that ‘money’ or ‘credit’ is not created in the void. It has to be obtained by taxes ie by cutting into the profits of the capitalists, or the subsistence standards of the workers, or by ‘deficit financing, which in a roundabout way comes to the same thing. This is because by artificially increasing the note issues, it decreases the purchasing power of money by inflation and thus in the long run has the same effect as the above. Either way a fall in the rate of profit is inevitable. Purchasing power is cut and endeavours of this sort can only aggravate the outbreak of mass unemployment and crisis.

Effect of Rearmament

In a certain sense rearmament on a world scale is having this effect in the capitalist countries. The expenditure on arms creates an enormous amount of fictitious capital which gets its share of the total wealth, of the surplus created by the working class. It has as a consequence a rise in prices, and usually a decrease in the standard of living of the workers. While injecting a further element of disease in the already decaying organism of capitalism, it cannot prevent but only delay the outbreak of crisis.

It is true that many in the Labour Party, particularly some of the Bevanites, think that rearmament can be replaced and slump avoided by an extended ‘point 4’ programme. But even a ‘plan’ (if it were to be agreed upon by the European powers and the USA) greater in scope than point 4 would, despite the ballyhoo, be microscopic in relation to the needs of Asia and Africa. It would be even less able to absorb the production and potential over-production in the capitalist world and would not succeed in preventing crisis.

In particular Crosland and others of like mind are living in a fool’s paradise when the problems of the world market are taken into account. A minor economic recession or fall in production of a few per cent, which would hardly provoke a ripple in America, will mean major economic convulsions in Britain and Western Europe. It can be imagined then what would be the effect of a big fall in production. This is recognised fearfully even by such journals as the Observer and The Economist.

Nationally and internationally the market economy still dominates in Britain. In his muddled way even Crosland has glimmerings of the problem. He says ‘Under the post-war Labour administration the tempo of change was enormously accelerated and by 1951 Britain had in all essentials ceased to be a capitalist country’ (my emphasis). And on the very next page he unconsciously contradicts himself. ‘It (‘Welfare State’, ‘Mixed Economy’) is capitalist to the extent that private ownership of industry predominates, that most production is for the market, and that many of the old class divisions persist.’ To what extent? Where 80 per cent of the economy is privately owned, capitalism, its economy and its laws are predominant. The public sectors, like the post office in the past, will operate for the benefit of the private sector. No amount of financial juggling can overcome that decisive fact. Until the dominating heights and the dominating proportion of industry is nationalised the laws of capitalist economy will dictate to the government, whether Labour or Conservative.

It is from this fundamental error that flow the mistakes and dreams of Crosland and other Fabians. No more Jarrows and Ebbw Vales. ‘Both the area, and the bitterness, of social conflict are much reduced…no uniquely delineated ruling class, nor clearly defined class struggle.’

Class Antagonisms Intensified

In reality, however, the rumblings of the coming storm are faintly foreshadowed in the strike of steel workers and miners in America and the wage demands of the engineers, miners and other workers in Britain, in the face of the steadily increasing cost of living. The capitalists are cautiously preparing for the struggle. If in the post-war period in Britain and America (not on the Continent be it noted) a relative period of quiet has ensued, that has been because of international relations, the class relations within the countries themselves, the mighty strength of organised labour, the fear of the ruling class, but above all because the ruling class could afford crumbs of concessions from the feast of profits in the post-war boom.

But this period is now drawing to a close. Far from the fond dream of class reconciliation, a period of bitter, more implacable class conflict looms ahead in all its stark horror. The ‘new’ Fabians may think their themes are really ‘modern’, ‘realistic’ and ‘new’. In fact in one form or another every boom has seen the dissemination of these panaceas and utopias, of a change in capitalism, of a new stage, of sedate, kind and tolerant amelioration of class antagonisms, of a rosy period of gradual change for the better, of great reforms which all ended in disaster. On the basis of the new Fabians’ themes the labour movement could only find catastrophe.

Go back to contents page or go on to next section, Will There be a Slump?

NOTES

[1] In Place of Fear by Aneurin Bevan, was published in 1952 in the aftermath of the 1951 election defeat.

[2] Joseph Schumpeter was a member of the ‘Austrian School’ of economists, who put forward an alternative theory of business cycles to that of Marx, emphasising the innovative role of small businesses.

Openly Lying Us Into War With Iran
Lying the World Into War Is Always an Option

by Jon Schwarz

Global Research, February 29, 2012
A Tiny Revolution – 2012-02-28

Picture: Kenneth Pollack

This is from p. 84-5 in Which Path to Persia?: Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran, a June, 2009 book edited and co-authored by Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution:

…absent a clear Iranian act of aggression, American airstrikes against Iran would be unpopular in the region and throughout the world…it would be far more preferable if the United States could cite an Iranian provocation as justification for the airstrikes before launching them. Clearly, the more outrageous, the more deadly, and the more unprovoked the Iranian action, the better off the United States would be. Of course, it would be very difficult for the United States to goad Iran into such a provocation without the rest of the world recognizing this game, which would then undermine it. (One method that would have some possibility of success would be to ratchet up covert regime change efforts in the hope that Tehran would retaliate overtly, or even semi-overtly, which could then be portrayed as an unprovoked act of Iranian aggression.) … [T]he use of airstrikes could not be the primary U.S. policy toward Iran…until Iran provided the necessary pretext.

You may remember Pollack from The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, the 2002 book cited by all the nice liberals who sadly and reluctantly supported war. What you don’t remember—because none of the nice liberals mentioned it—is that on p. 364-5 of The Threatening Storm Pollack presented exactly the same option regarding Iraq:

Assembling a […] coalition would be infinitely easier if the United States could point to a smoking gun with Iraqi fingerprints on it—some new Iraqi outrage that would serve to galvanize international opinion and create the pretext for an invasion…

There are probably […] courses the United States could take that might prompt Saddam to make a foolish, aggressive move, that would then become the “smoking gun” justifying an invasion. An aggressive U.S. covert action campaign might provoke Saddam to retaliate overtly, providing a casus belli…

What matters about this is that Pollack is right at the heart of the Democratic Party’s foreign policy establishment, and he’s completely comfortable proposing that he and his friends lie the world into war after war in the mideast. (The other authors of Which Path to Persia? are Daniel L. Byman, Martin Indyk, Suzanne Maloney, Michael E. O’Hanlon and Bruce Riedel.) No one he hangs around with will find anything jarring about this. And he knows he can count on the media to never mention this option is being openly kicked around before the war starts. (Pollack is Ted Koppel’s son-in-law.)

To understand how seriously the U.S. government takes this kind of thing, here’s some of the relevant history involving Iraq and Iran:

1. In 1997, a Clinton cabinet member (probably Madeleine Albright) suggested that the Air Force fly a U-2 so slowly and low over Iraq that Iraq would be able to shoot it down. This would be a “precipitous event—something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world” and enable us to invade.

2. On February 16, 2002, George W. Bush authorized parts of “Anabasis”, a CIA plan to fly Iraqi exiles into southern Iraq, where they would seize a military base in hopes Saddam would fly troops south to retake it. According to one of the CIA operatives involved, “The idea was to create an incident in which Saddam lashes out… you’d have a premise for war: we’ve been invited in.”

3. In 2002, the U.S. and U.K. doubled their rate of bombing Iraq “in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war.”

4. On January 31, 2003, in a White House meeting with Tony Blair, Bush proposed painting a U.S. plane in the colors of the UN in hopes it would draw Iraqi fire, thus providing a pretext to invade.

5. In early 2008, Dick Cheney and friends discussed how to create a casus belli for attacking Iran. One of their bright ideas was to build some speed boats that looked like the ones belonging to the Iranian navy, put Navy SEALs on them, and then have the SEALs start shooting at American ships. (Note that with this concept we’d give up on secretly goading Iran into responding to our aggression, and just provide both sides of the war ourselves.)

Given that someone like Barry McCaffrey is privately telling NBC executives that Iran is going to “further escalate” hostilities in next few months, it’s a good time to pay attention to all this.

P.S. If you’re hungry for more of Kenneth Pollack’s acute political insights, this is from Which Path to Persia?:

Iranian foreign policy is frequently driven by internal political considerations…More than once, Iran has followed a course that to outsiders appeared self-defeating but galvanized the Iranian people to make far-reaching sacrifices in the name of seemingly quixotic goals.

And this is from The Threatening Storm:

Saddam’s foreign policy history is littered with bizarre decisions, poor judgement, and catastrophic miscalculations…Even when Saddam does consider a problem at length…his own determination to interpret geopolitical calculations to suit what he wants to believe anyway lead him to construct bizarre scenarios that he convinces himself are highly likely…

[100 pages later]

Imagine how different the Middle East and the world would be if a new Iraqi state were stable, prosperous, and a force for progress in the region…Imagine if we could rebuild Iraq as a model of what a modern Arab state could be…Invading Iraq might not just be our least bad alternative, it potentially could be our best course of action.

The United States has powerful bombs at the ready in the case of possible military action against Iran and work is under way to bolster their firepower, the air force chief said Wednesday, AFP reported.

General Norton Schwartz, air force chief of staff, declined to say whether US weapons — including a 30,000-pound massive ordnance penetrator (MOP) bomb — could reach nuclear sites in Iran that were concealed or buried deep underground.

“We have an operational capability and you wouldn’t want to be there when we used it,” said Schwartz, when asked about the MOP bomb.

“Not to say that we can’t continue to make improvements and we are,” he told defense reporters.

Amid speculation that a nuclear site dug into the side of a mountain near Qom is beyond the reach of American weapons, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has acknowledged shortcomings with the giant MOP bomb and said the Pentagon was working to improve the explosive.

“The bottom line is we have a capability but we’re not sitting on our hands, we’ll continue to improve it over time,” Schwartz said.

Asked about recent comments from retired senior officers that some targets in Iran are immune from US air power, Schwartz said: “It goes without saying that strike is about physics. The deeper you go the harder it gets.”

But he added that the US arsenal “is not an inconsequential capability.”

The former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired general James Cartwright, suggested last week that one nuclear facility in Iran could not be taken out in a bombing campaign.

Cartwright appeared to be referring to the Fordo plant built deep inside a mountain near the Shiite shrine city of Qom, some 150 kilometers (90 miles) south of Tehran.

Schwartz also declined to say whether air power would be effective against Iran’s nuclear program but said that the outcome of any preemptive attack would depend on the goal of the strike.

“What is the objective? Is it to eliminate, is to delay, is to complicate? I mean what is the national security objective. That is sort of the imminent argument on all of this,” he said.

“There’s a tendency I think for all of us to get tactical too quickly and worry about weaponeering and things of that nature.”

Alan Watt, Gerald Celente and G Edward Griffin breaks down how the controllers use the mass media, sports, Madison ave and Pavlovian Dialectic to condition the Sheeple.. however many of us are now breaking through this disneyland matrix.

Video explores the subject of predictive programming and how the mainstream media has been used to subtly manipulate our minds to guide us down a particular path.

If you go to http://www.CuttingThroughTheMatrix.com and check out some of the many talks that Alan Watt has given on this subject, you’ll be amazed at the sheer extent of the use of predictive programming in the media.

Alex Jones is spot on. Have﻿ lost our sense of community. How he said growing up, people had bbq’s, neighbors sitting outside talking with one another. I’m 24 now but I remember growing up when I was younger in a house that was on a culdesac and our Filipino neighbors would invite everyone over from the street to sit outside, eat and talk, they made the best shish kabobs lol. And we’d invite everyone over to use our pool. I miss those good times, getting to know your neighbors.

DiNatale635 11 months ago 3

DiNatale635 Agreed!, now they want us to be suspicious of our neighbors who could be terrorists “if you see something, say something”. Welcome to Fascism

In another 5-10yrs there will be drones﻿ flying daily overhead in the suburbs. Welcome to 1984

58784677 11 months ago 2

it doesn’t matter who is put into office.. he’ll be going along with the same plans.. we are suckers.. we all﻿ need to WAKE UP! Its not two parties its ONE agenda;

phoenixmoon3 3 months ago in playlist hmm 2

Wow, this is so true!﻿ And I totally notice it through my neighbor’s behavior as well, they’re very distant. If I don’t say hello to them first they won’t say hello to me at all, wtf? And how bout the ads the make you feel like there’s something wrong with everyone? “Do you feel depressed, do you feel this way or that way? Then you need this pill!” I’ve noticed A LOT of people are on medication nowadays and it probably has something to do with this. They wanna turn people into robots! >_<